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The Importance of Michael Madsen
Image Credit: Miramax
The Importance of Michael Madsen
If it wasn’t for actor Michael Madsen, I likely wouldn’t be a writer on the internets, at least not in the way I am now. Let me explain.
Back in the fall of 2005, when 411mania was looking for new writers for its various departments, I had to send in a sample movie review as part of my application for writing for the movies zone. I decided to do a review of a movie that I had just rented from a video store, a low-budget horror action thriller thing directed by Mark L. Lester, the guy that directed the classic Ahnold Schwarzenegger action flick Commando (1985). The movie was called Sacrifice, and it starred Michael Madsen as a career criminal that decides to break out of prison in order to track down the serial killer that apparently murdered his daughter in Alabama. Sacrifice was terrible (as I remember it, it was way too complicated for its own good and just didn’t make any sense), but it was somehow watchable because of Madsen, as well as his co-stars Jamie Luner and Bokeem Woodbine. I had also rented another Madsen led low-budget flick at the same time as Sacrifice, an action flick called Supreme Sanction (1999) that also starred Kristy Swanson, Ron Perlman, Tom “Tiny” Lister, Jr., and Donald Faison. Supreme Sanction wasn’t that great, either (it had its moments but I remember it being slow and annoyingly flippant at times), but it was watchable because of Madsen. I wrote up reviews for both movies and picked my review for Sacrifice to send in simply because it read better. I apparently picked right because I was hired for the movies section soon after.
Flash forward to early 2008 and the birth of The Gratuitous B-Movie Column, my second column at 411 (I was also writing something called “What?!! This Column!??” at the same time). I had wanted to do something that focused on B-movies and indie cinema since at least 2006, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what I wanted to do. When a new video store opened up down the road from me in late 2007/early 2008 (I don’t remember the exact date the store opened), things changed. I walked into that new video store one day not knowing anything about the Family Video chain (what the hell did “Family Video” even mean? Did it only rent “family friendly” movies? Were the owners of the chain named Family?). After about an hour of going through the store’s new release wall and its cheap deal sections (FV had a vast section of “2 for $1” releases and a sort of “nearly new” section that was like $1 a movie), I was amazed at how many new low-budget genre movies it had. Family Video had stuff I had never seen at any other video store (I still had a Blockbuster in business at the time) and just stuff that I had never heard of at all. One of the newer low-budget genre flicks I saw on the shelf at Family Video was something called Afghan Knights. It appeared to be some sort of action horror thing, which immediately piqued my interest. And it also had Michael Madsen in it (he was featured prominently on the DVD cover). I had to see it. And I knew, right then and there, that I also had to write about it. And it was in that moment that The Gratuitous B-Movie was born. Essentially.
Now, much like Sacrifice and Supreme Sanction, Afghan Knights was mediocre at best. The idea behind Afghan Knights was cool (CIA mercenaries fighting supernatural enemies in war torn Afghanistan for some reason) and it had Michael Madsen in it, who put in a fascinating performance as a shady CIA guy, but the movie just didn’t come together the way it needed to in order to be fully successful (you can read my whole review here. The Afghan Knights review appears after my review of the first Walking Tall movie. And check out my review of the Stephen Baldwin led “thriller” Green Mail while you’re at it, too). As The Gratuitous B-Movie Column continued, movies featuring Madsen would appear multiple times (the awesome action horror flick UKM: The Ultimate Killing Machine, the lame crime flick Machine, and the bizarre thrillers Outrage: Born in Terror and The Killing Jar).
There were also a few movies that played in theaters that featured Madsen that I reviewed. Madsen was in the Uwe Boll directed Bloodrayne (2006) alongside Kristanna Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez, Udo Kier, Meatloaf, Michael Pare, and Billy Zane. And then there was the After Dark Horrorfest flick Tooth and Nail, where Madsen played a nasty cannibal and worked with the great Vinnie Jones. And then there were the direct-to-video movies that I saw and reviewed on their own (meaning they were not featured in The Gratuitous B-Movie Column), stuff like Vigilante Diaries (2016), and most recently Death Count (2022).
The one thing that happened again and again with the low-budget B-movies that I saw with Madsen in them was that, good movie or bad movie, Madsen was always interesting. Sometimes Madsen was just in the movie, and sometimes he was the actual star of the movie (and he was usually the movie’s main villain), and, again, he was always interesting. It’s amazing to think how, time and again, that is what you had to look forward to when you knew that Michael Madsen was in the movie you were about to watch. Madsen was always going to be interesting.
Since the announcement of Madsen’s passing, most articles have reminisced about Madsen’s appearances in the Tarantino movies Reservoir Dogs (1992), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), The Hateful Eight (2015), and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), his appearance in the first two Free Willy movies, his role as Press in the first two Species movies, and to a lesser extent his part in the final Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie Die Another Day and the Robert Rodriguez comic book adaptation Sin City (2005). And that makes sense since most people likely know Madsen from those movies as opposed to something like A Cold Day in Hell (2011) or A Matter of Justice (2011). I’d imagine that his performance as the sadistic Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs will be the performance he is most remembered for. And the great lament among pop culture aficionados will now forever be that Tarantino never tried to get that proposed movie made where Madsen’s Mr. Blonde, real name Vic Vega, hooked up with his brother Vincent Vega (John Travolta) from Pulp Fiction (1994) and went to Amsterdam to do whatever the hell it is they were supposed to do (will Tarantino write a novel based on whatever that idea was now that Madsen has passed away?). Most everyone who loves Mr. Blonde will no doubt continue to do the little dance he does to “Stuck in the Middle with You” before cutting off the cop’s ear.
But what about all of the other stuff that Madsen did during his career? He starred in the TV show Vengeance Unlimited, which went on for 16 episodes. Will interest in that show skyrocket? Will his numerous other TV show appearances in shows like CSI: Miami, 24, Blue Bloods, and Hawaii Five-0 become things people will seek out? And will the low-budget B-movies/genre movies that he filled out his filmography with become more important? Those B-movies will likely fill up the rosters of various streaming services around the world into the future (as I write this, Tubi has well over twenty Madsen movies ready to watch). And if you look at Madsen’s IMDb page, there are seventeen projects he apparently participated in that haven’t been released yet. Are there others that just haven’t been uploaded to IMDb yet? And just how interesting will those Michael Madsen performances be?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I know I plan on making an effort to see and, maybe, review some of those new movies whenever they come out. The older ones I haven’t seen yet, too. I hope you make an effort to see some of them as well. Because that is what I will likely remember Madsen most for. Always working, always showing up in movies that you’ve never heard of but will give a chance watching because he’s in them. A real deal modern B-movie legend. Always interesting, always fascinating, even if the movie maybe isn’t.
Being interesting. That kind of thing really does matter.
Michael Madsen 1957-2025
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